Forgiving Yourself
by catherine.marie97
Summary: After a car sinks to the bottom of a river and Ziva is unable to rescue the child in the backseat, she blames herself. Tim is also there to share his experience on not being able to save a child.


_Ziva's hands broke the water first and McGee dove in after her. As she swam down, she scraped her forehead on a reef but kept swimming. The lengths they went to to save people were extraordinary. But that was the philosophy they lived by : To Protect and Serve._

_The car was quickly sinking and the young boy in the backseat was panicking and the mother in the driver's seat was passed out._

_McGee went to the roof of the car and pulled the lady out of the sunroof, swimming to the surface. Ziva was still trying to get the young boy, who was now unconscious, out of the backseat. The window was only halfway down and the kid, who probably played football, was wearing shoulder pads. _

_She tugged and tugged at his body but the pads made it impossible for him to pass through the window. All of the windows were down the same distance. She tried breaking the glass but it proved to be futile._

_Ziva refused to let this kid die like this. She tried to pull him out of the sunroof on the car but they had the same problem. The pads made it impossible for him to pass._

_She began to feel lightheaded so regretfully she began to swim to the surface. When her head popped up above the water, the mother looked at her fearfully._

"_Where is Kyle?" she asked._

_McGee looked at her expectantly._

"_The shoulder pads…I could not…the window was too narrow," Ziva replied. The mother tried to launch herself back into the water but McGee held onto her tightly. _

"_I am so sorry," Ziva whispered to the water. She knew that the young boy's soul would forever be on her conscience._

McGee stared at the door of the women's bathroom intently. The day's events would certainly make anyone thoroughly hate themselves.

It was way after hours and no one else was in the building, aside from Jenny and Ducky. Gibbs and DiNozzo were on assignment in Virginia and Abby checked out at three due to a sick stomach. There would be no one around to tease him for what he was about to do.

He pushed the door open and announced himself. "Ziva? Uh I'm coming in."

"I want to be alone, McGee."

McGee almost lost the resolve to continue. _Almost_. "I understand…" he began.

"You _think _that you understand but you do not. You did not see the look of desperation on his face! You did not see him struggle frantically with his seatbelt so do not stand there and tell me that you understand!" she shouted.

He was shocked by the sudden outburst. She had been so quiet on the drive back to the headquarters. "I understand exactly what you're going through. When I was twelve I had a six year old brother named Simon."

"You had a brother, McGee? I thought it was just you and Sarah."

McGee swallowed hard. "I don't like to talk about him. Anyway, we were at the lake and my mom let me take the canoe out on the water by myself with Sarah and Simon. It was kind of windy and Sarah's hat blew off…" his voice choked up.

"And I was kneeling on the edge of the canoe, trying to reach her hat and I leaned out too far and the canoe capsized. I had to make a choice, Sarah or Simon. Sarah was an asthmatic and Simon was trapped under the canoe. I tried to push the canoe over but it was too heavy," the tears began to stream down his face.

"I saw Sarah struggling to stay above the water and it killed me to have to make that choice but I couldn't save him. If I had tried to save both of them, it would've taken too long to move the canoe so Simon _and_ Sarah would have drowned. In life you have to make hard decisions."

He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and focused his attention back on Ziva. She picked the cloth up and dipped it in alcohol, pressing it to the cut on her forehead.

"Let me get that for you," McGee said, taking the cloth from her hand. He dabbed the cut gently, with his hand holding Ziva's face in place.

He didn't even realize that he was touching her. It occurred to her that he was trying not to hurt her. He was being as gentle as possible when she did not deserve it.

"McGee, what am I going to do if I have children?" she balked.

"What do you mean?" he said, resting the cloth down on the counter.

"This is not the first time the life of a child has slipped through my fingers," she said shamefully. "My baby sister Tali was eleven when our house was set on fire. I tried to climb through her bedroom window and I actually had a grip on her. Just as I was about to pull her up…" she stopped, holding her head with her hand.

"A fireman pulled me down just as the roof of the house caved in. They found her body. She died from smoke inhalation."

Ziva had always believed that she was superwoman and that she could save everyone, but when the harsh reality that she couldn't hit her today, it broke down some walls that she didn't even know she had built up.

Her body shook as she tried to restrain her tears. Ziva had a hard exterior and her father was mostly to blame for it, but she had feelings just like anyone else did but she just did a better job of hiding them.

Her lower lip began to tremble and her face turned into a distorted mess. A cry escaped Ziva's lips. She cried for Kyle the boy she could not save, she cried for Simon a child who hadn't even really lived yet but most of all she cried for Tali, her sister who she failed to save.

Being comforting was not exactly McGee's forte but he figured it was the same as when he used to hold Sarah as a baby when she cried. He opened up his arms and she reluctantly shuffled closer to him.

She had never been this close to McGee, ever. And she had never allowed him to see this much of her. As he rubbed small circles on her back, her wailing diminished to choked sobs .

"How can I…How can I…live with myself McGee?" she bawled.

He recalled when he had been in this exact same place, going to a therapist after Simon's death. And he would never forget the words his therapist spoke to him. McGee thought them so meaningful, he decided to answer Ziva's question by quoting his therapist.

"The first step is forgiving yourself, Ziva."


End file.
